“Well, then.” He rolled his shoulders. “Albert, how about ye get yer tools and we see if we can help that poor fucker over there?”
Albert, a large broad-shouldered man of very little words, stood up with an affirmative grunt and left the hut. Shrapnel watched him go and didn’t really dare to look at Flak.

When Albert returned a little later he bore a tool box filled with an assortment of spanners, wrenches, screwdrivers and files and a large and sinister looking bolt cropper. He put all those things onto the table, cracked his knuckles, and gave Shrapnel a meaningful look.
“Sit on that chair here, dude”, he said. “And we’ll see about it.”
Flak slowly lit a cigarette and forced himself to keep calm. With those tools he would have had the collar off Shrapnel’s neck in no time at all, but he was forced to hold his tongue because admitting any knowledge about the collar would have given them both away. So he kept silent and watched as Albert examined the collar and tried his luck with several small screwdrivers and wrenches.

In the end, Albert went the path of brute force when all else had failed and applied the bolt cutter. The metal screeched and groaned and the collar cracked and bent and finally, after almost strangling Shrapnel, it gave with a metallic ring and clattered to the ground.
Shrapnel gasped and coughed and gingerly clutched his raw and mangled throat, feeling a few trickles of blood where edges of the bursting metal had broken through the skin.
The woman, who had earlier introduced herself as Rosie, now walked over to him and carefully cleaned the skin of his neck with a rag soaked in something alcoholic. It stung like liquid fire and Shrapnel couldn’t suppress a hiss, but the bleeding stopped.

“There.” Rosie patted his shoulder. “Isn’t that better?”
“Lots.” Shrapnel coughed again. “Is there more water?”
“Ye don’t need no water, boy.” Jake dug into a pocket and produced a canteen that he uncorked before he offered it to him.
Shrapnel took it with a nod of thanks and took a generous swig of whatever infernal stuff it was. It burned in his nostrils and the way down his throat before turning into a pleasant warmth in his stomach. “Thanks”, he muttered after his eyes had stopped watering.
Jake took the canteen and knocked it back before offering it to Flak who declined.

“So”, Jake said, when Albert had finished clearing up his tools. “Now that we got that out of the way, what else would ye need? Might be we could help.”
“That’s very generous”, Flak said. “But I’m afraid we don’t have anything to pay you. All that’s left to us is what we have on our backs.”
“Payment doesn’t have to be in caps”, Jake gave back. “Rosie had you chopping wood for yer dinner, so ye get the picture. We’ve got a stable that needs a new roof. The more hands, the better. And if one of ye two had any knowledge to repair our old generator...”
“I’ll have a look at the generator”, Flak said. “Tomorrow?”
“Sure. It’s dark now, pal. Rosie, find those two a few spare blankets. We don’t have that much space, so I’m afraid you gotta sleep on the kitchen floor.”
“We’ve had worse”, Shrapnel replied.

Rosie came back a few moments later with four blankets. “He might be Elliot’s size, don’t you think?”
“Elliot?” Jake frowned. “That’s right, but would you...”
“I would.” Then she looked at Flak and Shrapnel who looked mildly puzzled. “Elliot was my first husband. He died a few years ago, but I still have all his things. I just... I couldn’t part with them. But you know... he was a practical man. He wouldn’t have wanted them to go to waste.” And then, to Flak, she added: “Would you get up?”
Flak did so, and it turned out that the kitchen bench he had been sitting on was also a crate. Rosie dug into it and dumped several bundles onto the table, two softer ones and one that clanked. “His clothes and boots, and his shotgun.”